ROGER OF Λ VENDO VER. [A.D. 109C. persons, having taken the cross, might be set at liberty. Now the aforesaid Hugh was among the first to set out on pilgrimage ; he crossed the Alps, and went through Italy into Apulia, whence with a small retinue he crossed to Dyrrachium, and remained there waiting for the rest of the pilgrims. There he was seized by the governor of that province and delivered over, bound, to the emperor, who kept him in prison as he would a robber or a murderer. The messengers of duke Godfrey received a positive refusal, and the crusaders, in consequence thereof, for eight days overran the whole country with their troops. When the emperor heard of this, he sent to the duke and offered to give up the captive nobles on condition that the crusaders should cease from plundering. The duke, therefore, restrained his men from further pillage, and proceeded to Constantinople, where he received the captive noblemen unharmed, namely, Hugh the Great, Drogo de Neel, Clarembald de Vendole, and William the carpenter ; all of whom thanked him gratefully for their liberation. Of the perfidy of the emperor Alexius. Alexius, the Grecian emperor, was a wicked and deceitful man. When he served in the palace of his predecessor Nicophorus, he was the first soldier at the court, but he conspired basely against his master, and about five or six years before this expedition to the Holy Land he deposed his sovereign and became emperor in his stead. In his communication with the pilgrims, he always used deceitful language, for he viewed with suspicion the numbers and prowess of the crusaders. If, therefore, he ever refrained from doing them an injury, this was the effect, not of honour, but of fear ; for when duke Godfrey had encamped with his army before the city of Constantinople, messengers came from the emperor inviting the duke to visit the court with a few only of his attendants. The duke, therefore, by the advice of his council, made excuses for not going, at which the emperor was indignant, and refused to furnish a market to the duke's army. The princes now began to fear that their provisions would fail, and, scouring the suburban districts with armed men, collected such numbers of sheep and cattle, that there